A/N: There was an outcry after I originally posted this on tumblr so I wrote an epilogue because I am weak.

It had been an odd couple of weeks for the Doctor and, for him, that was saying something. It had all started with him waking up on the floor of his flaming TARDIS and being informed by Donna that he wasn't wearing anything. By some miracle it had only got more bizarre from that point onwards.

Now, however, everything looked perfectly normal to the untrained eye. He and Rose had just stepped through the door of her flat after a week spent in the south of France. Of course, nothing was a simple as it appeared.

While in France they had stayed at Pete's secluded holiday home in the hopes of avoiding the press until a convincing back story could be written for him that didn't reveal he was a human-Time Lord hybrid and less than a month old. It had been nice to spend some time together without the pressure and questions from everyone else - even if Jackie had phoned them twice a day. A lot of talking had happened, a fair bit of shouting too, and there was still more to be said, but the initial awkwardness and confusion was fading. Sometimes, when Rose smiled and he laughed, he could almost pretend that Torchwood had never torn the world apart.

Then there were times, like now, when he was trying to look as though he was at home in a flat he'd never been in before while subtly trying to take in as much of it as possible. Rose wasn't helping the situation by studying the post that she'd picked up with far more interest than it probably warranted.

"I like your flat," he said, nodding at nothing in particular. "All the-"

"I hate it."

"Oh."

She dropped the post onto a side table, walked over to the fridge and pulled out a purple bottle of Vitex. "Want one?"

"Nah, I'm good."

They stood in silence while she took a swig from the bottle. The Doctor tried not to watch her, but found it difficult. Since being left alone with her, he'd learnt very quickly that he had no way of controlling his own hormones and was struggling with it more than any other change to his biology.

Deciding it would be better to remove himself from the room entirely, he wandered into the living room and looked at the handful of photographs on the mantelpiece. None of them were in frames, just propped up against scented candles and odd trinkets. Most of the people in them he recognised, such as Pete, Jackie or Mickey, but there was the occasional face that was a mystery. One that was easy enough to solve was the ginger toddler that featured in nearly every picture, usually being hugged by a grinning Rose.

"Tony," he breathed, noting how the boy was the spitting image of Pete but with Rose's eyes.

With Rose showing no sign of joining him, he moved onto the small bookshelf. Amongst the surprising amount of physics textbooks was the odd Charles Dickens (he smiled at that), a Torchwood training and operating procedure manual (he grimaced) and a familiar set of seven books.

Breathing a sigh of relief that he wasn't being condemned to a bleak universe, he straightened up, plucking the book on the far right off the shelf as he did so. "So you managed to get a copy, then?"

"What?" Rose called. She hurried into the living room and froze when she what he was holding.

"Deathly Hallows," he said. "What did you think?"

"About?"

He shrugged. "Any of it."

Pulling on her sleeve so it covered all but the tips of her fingers, Rose took a step closer to him. "I haven't read it."

"What?"

She opened her mouth to reply but all that emerged was a choking noise. The Doctor watched in horror as her eyes filled with tears that she ducked her head to hide from him.

Having seen Rose cry more times than he could count since he'd arrived here, over everything from him toHim to missing Tony's first word while she was away, he immediately dropped the book on the sofa and took her hands in his. His heart skipped a beat when she didn't pull away and he wondered what kind of pathetic cardiovascular system he'd been cursed with.

It took a moment, but Rose sniffed and pulled herself together enough to talk. "I was angry with you one day so I bought it. Got home and… couldn't finish the first page. I-I promised and… 'S'stupid-"

She tried to pull away from him, but he held on. "No, it isn't," he told her quietly, ducking down so he could meet her eyes. "Not even a little bit."

It seemed everything either had promised the other and haunted them both. There wasn't a day that went by that the Doctor didn't hear the echo of her "forever", while his vow to always bring her home had probably stayed with Rose in a similar way. It was the smaller things that caught them unawares that hurt the most though, like finding one of her cushions in the library or laughing at something and planning on telling her, only to remember he had no way to.

He hoped it didn't take so long to readjust to having her back in his life.

Though it was a pale imitation of her usual heart-warming grin, the smile she gave him then, her eyes shining, was still enough to remind him of the years that lay ahead of them.

"Well, that's our plan for the evening sorted." He rushed back to sofa to retrieve the book. "First things first…"

As Rose watched on with a bemused, yet fond expression, he flicked through the book at lightening speed and frowned. "Can't read as quickly as I used to…" he muttered with a frown, before repeating the action marginally slower. "Brilliant! Exactly the same as the proper version!"

Rose giggled as he dragged her willingly over to him and down onto the sofa. As though it was only the other day that they had found a copy of Deathly Hallows at that market, she curled into his side and waited for him to start reading.

"Chapter One," he read. "The Dark Lord Ascending."

Over the next couple of days, in between the formalities of forging enough paperwork to make him a legal citizen of the British Republic, the learning curves of discovering a new universe and the joy of finally meeting Tony Tyler, the Doctor and Rose spent every spare minute they could reading.

Like everything in their lives, it wasn't as easy as they first thought it would be. When they finished the chapter where Harry and Hermione visited his parents' graves, Rose announced she fancied going for a run on her own and didn't return for two hours. A quick tea break after Ron's emotional return to the horcrux hunt somehow ended up with them having a frank discussion about everything they'd been through without each other that went on well into the night. During Malfoy Manor she noticed how he'd tensed up and took his hand but didn't ask him why.

As he read on, he thought maybe one day he'd tell her what he'd seen during the Time War. It was only then that it fully hit him that he would have the chance to.

With the final chapter finished, favourite characters mourned, Harry's choice of names mocked whilst Ron and Hermione's were applauded, they crawled into bed and held each other just because they could. As he drifted off into the sleep that he apparently needed every night now, the Doctor knew that things were far from perfect and likely never would be, but for now, with Rose next to him, all was well.

Thanks for reading!